Introduction 9 



the creepers be not allowed to grow too thickly, 

 as there would be danger of the trees being killed. 



A good many clipped hedges and old avenues, 

 fortunately, escaped destruction, though probably 

 not very many are of great age. The Hon. Miss 

 Amherst in her charming book 1 mentions that 

 an ' interesting garden of the Tudor date is at 

 the Palace, Hadham, in Hertfordshire, which for 

 many hundred years belonged to the Bishops 

 of London. It was also the dwelling-place of 

 Katherine, widow of Henry v., after her marriage 

 with Owen Tudor, and it was here that Edmund, 

 father of Henry vn., was born. The garden at the 

 present day is surrounded on two sides by a wall, 

 while the other side is protected by a high yew 

 hedge, three yards thick.' It is somewhat doubt- 

 ful if the hedges ascribed to this period date so 

 far back as to Tudor times. I do not know 

 of there being any of so great age. That at 

 Henbury, near Bristol, in Mr. Sampson's garden, 

 is pretty certainly two hundred years old, and I 

 know not any of much greater age, except that at 

 Milford, County Mayo. One of the trees in the 

 hedge at Henbury has a girth of 6 feet 6 inches at 

 the ground and 9 feet at 3 feet above that point. 

 About one hundred years ago the hedge was cut 

 down to its present height of 16 feet. This is 

 shown by the old dead trunks being visible in the 



1 History of Gardening in England, p. 83. 



